This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly answer a reader question about the heart and soul of every publisher’s operation: what goes into your secret sauce? We all have a point of view, and a big part of your path to success is understanding what yours is, how it affects your publishing, and how to let it be your north star. They also talk about how your POV is different from your taste in books.
Do you have a passion that you want to obsess about in a love letter to the world? In this new edition of Microcosm’s popular DIY guide to zine-making, Joe Biel updates the information provided in the first edition (edited by Biel and the late and great Bill Brent) to address zine making in today’s digital and social-media-obsessed world. Covering all the bases for beginners, Make a Zine! hits on more advanced topics like Creative Commons licenses, legality, and sustainability. Says Feminist Review, “Make a Zine! is an inspiring, easy, and digestible read for anyone, whether you’re already immersed in a cut-and-paste world, a graphic designer with a penchant for radical thought, or a newbie trying to find the best way to make yourself and your ideas known.”
Cast a spell to turn your kitchen into a healthy haven at the heart of your home. Learn about traditional healing methods, gain practical DIY skills, and extricate yourself from reliance on toxic consumer products. Katie Haegele and Nadine Schneider’s recipes and tips cover all aspects of a natural lifestyle, from home and garden to body and mind. Simple instructions and a thorough list of tools and ingredients provides you with everything you need to get started, while the annotated bibliography steers curious readers to even more information. Simple, traditional living can connect us with our ancestors, our children, and ourselves, especially during this time of political turmoil and environmental crisis.
It probably won’t surprise anyone that Microcosm workers love us some independent bookstores. In honor of Small Business Saturday this November 27th, we’re joining the American Booksellers Association “Indies First” campaign to encourage everyone to pay a visit to their local bookstore and pick up some holiday gifts (and reads for yourself, too, of course). Not sure where your nearest bookstore is? This map at Bookshop.org is easy to use and decently complete.
Here are some of our staff faves, edited for length (most of us had several and it was very hard to choose).
Sidnee, operations manager: Auntie’s Bookstore, Spokane, WA. The multiple floors makes it feel so magical and their kid section is awesome. Such friendly employees and I always find great gifts there, plus they’re great about supporting local artists of color with readings and features.
Glenn, data and shipping assistant: Visible Voice Books, Cleveland, OH. My local go-to. On the top floor of a converted funeral home, with a pizza place below it and a basement BBQ restaurant. It is very small but really well stocked with selected fiction and some very deep nonfiction sections, especially music and politics and local Cleveland things. Also has a cafe space with coffee and tea and wine and beer, where I spend most Sunday afternoons.
Sarah, store and receiving manager: Rose City Book Pub, Portland, OR. I love it and the owner is amazing. They have a special shelf for local and self published authors. The owner is an incredible baker and everyday she brings in a different kind of pastry. The back patio is platonic Portland vibes with murals, overgrown plants, and fairy lights.
Rose, intern: Phoenix Bookstore, Burlington, VT. A community favorite that hosts great author events.
Kristine, key accounts manager: Moe’s Books, Berkeley, CA. Great selection of new books (including, ahem, a good selection of Microcosm), great selection of used books (and very fair trade-in prices), great rare/collectible books & paper ephemera section on the 4th floor, 1st Amendment warriors (busted for obscenity for selling Zap and Snatch comics in ’68), terrific events (hopefully resuming soon), all around good people.
Lydia, publicity manager and editorial associate: Village Books and Paper Dreams, Bellingham and Lynden, WA. Village Books and Paper Dreams in Bellingham (and Lynden!) Washington are great. The cozy atmosphere, cafe and three (!) stories of books in the main shop in downtown Fairhaven are an absolute treat. They do good work too with local writers groups and host author events regularly, and have an incredible selection of new and used books.
Vevina, intern: Mother Foucault’s Bookshop, Portland, OR. I absolutely love Mother Foucault in Portland. The place is a beautiful mess inside and full of different books ranging from Kafka to Kristeva. But what I really love is that they have a lot of literary theory books.
Lex, editorial and marketing manager: Scuppernong Books, Greensboro, NC. Scuppernong Books in Greensboro. Great poetry section, great kids curation, always good conversation with the owners and staff and bar for working with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine. They were my first point of contact in Greensboro.
Pandora, intern: The Corvallis Book Bin, Corvallis, OR. The Corvallis Bookbin! I’m biased because I work there but… it’s a good team and I love being here!
Kalen, sales director: Mutiny Information Cafe, Denver and Trinidad, CO. They’re a fantastic community hub here in Denver. In addition to a fun and unexpected selection of books and zines (lots from small presses), they have great coffee, Biggie Smalls the bookstore cat, and events from punk shows to candidate forums. They also have a community pantry out in front of the store and do a lot of mutual aid support.
Elly, marketing and editorial director: Main Street Books, Minot, ND. Very far away from anywhere else in the US, this cozy, homey bookstore does a fantastic job serving its community. We first went there when it was a venue for some of the more acoustic elements of the Why Not Minot Fest. They serve a community that’s deeply conservative but also home to workers who come from around the world and a left-leaning student population, and they manage this with grace.
Joe, publisher: Mac’s Backs, Cleveland OH. When I was a shorter person, trying to figure out why the books that everyone insisted on showing to me were so boring, Mac’s Backs began subtly showing me politics and history that I had no idea about. Like any great bookstore, I could quietly poke around and find things that suited my ballooning brain. And I can attribute 20% of my self-awareness to the topics that I uncovered there was well as the lack of judgment that I received at the counter.
This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, we are debuting our first ever live show! Joe and Elly interview Sarah High, Senior Partnerships Manager at Bookshop.org, the online bookselling site that is revolutionizing the industry by partnering with brick and mortar bookstores, supporting rather than disrupting them. We talk about how Bookshop came to be and a little bit about the future of the book industry, our big hopes for the confluence of books and tech, and how we can achieve it by working together and sharing our passion for books.
Also check out our last two episodes, about the failed Penguin Random House acquisition of Simon & Schuster and how publishers can use the powers of math to make better books.
How do you teach your kids to be empathetic, feminist, anti-racist, kind to themselves and others, and generally not shitty at life … especially if you weren’t taught these things growing up? Parents and therapists Dr. Faith Harper and Bonnie Scott have teamed up to bring this book full of helpful guidance, perspective, and specific practices that can help your kids survive, thrive, and fight for a better world.
Friendships might just be the most important relationships of our lives. But unlike romantic relationships, there isn’t a lot of explicit guidance out there about how to look for, find, make, keep, grow, and break up with our friends. Dr. Faith has written a wise, fun, science-filled book about how to be a great friend and find other people to be great friends to you. The first half of the book is intended generally for all of us; the second half of the book is filled with advice columns getting into the very specific situations that tend to come up in our friendships.
This week on the People’s Guide to Publishing podcast, Joe and Elly talk about the Great Resignation as it applies to publishing—specifically to the blue-collar warehouse jobs that our industry relies on yet often doesn’t acknowledge or respect. We brag a little on our own warehouse staff who are currently outperforming our industry fulfillment times by a longshot, and make the case for treating warehouse workers as equal parts of the team.
These 11 feminist science fiction and fantasy stories are all about cats… and bicycles. Some are from the perspective of humans, like the bicycle sales rep who is somehow failing to sell product on a planet of bipedal felinoids. Others are from the cat’s perspective, like the adorable sphinx who is trying to learn to fly, or the ship’s cat carefully plotting for universal domination. It’s a playful, fun collection of well-written tales unlike anything else out there!
Sew it yourself! Learn to mend your clothes, hem your pants or make new ones that fit you perfectly, copy your favorite dress or t-shirt, add a pocket with a button, and anything else you can dream up. Skills-based rather than project-based, Kate Weiss’s new book teaches you how to think, dream, and act like a sewist, concocting clothes that fit your body, gender expression, and whatever physical needs your usual fast fashion fare isn’t fulfilling.